Map of Assalar, The Frontier (WIP)

**The Elderly Cartographer** · 10-05-2023, 02:34 PM

Map of Assalar, The Frontier

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Name: Map of Assalar - Cartoguild.png
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Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the guild!
I lay before your discerning eyes my current artistic burden.

Recently, I found an artist on Artstation who created a series of paintings called "Castles of the Medieval American West". They were amazing and beautiful. Mixing European medieval castles with American Western styles. To my dismay, I found out that he used an AI generator, so my opinion of the art plummeted. But the idea still remained; What would American castles look like?

Also for the last few months I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online. Whilst traversing the land of Cardolan, though not very Tolkien looking, I was struck by how very unique the landscape was for a fantasy world. It is a semi-arid terrain with red sandstone boulders protruding from the plains. I wanted to use these elements in a map.

Since the country of focus in my fantasy world is Agmar, a land whose biogeography is similar to the American northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.) I decided to develop more lands to the east of the Land of Agmar, and the Region of Ari:

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Name: Agmar land Collage.jpg
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Using real world climatology, I calculated that the lands beyond the Great Cloudy Mountains should be arid. Which was a perfect fit! I tried to make the land forms match up; Mountains -> badlands -> mesas/cliffs -> valleys and canyons.

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Name: Agmar land Collage Biome.jpg
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I might restrain myself too much, but I love a map where the elements belong. In my opinion, too many cartographers (Not talking about any of my honored peers on this illustrious forum) tend to throw fantasy elements into a mix-matched landscape, where mountains pointlessly rise out of empty plains, and canyons rip open fertile pastures, and rivers that flow against the land.

Little elements:
I added a savage headhunter from the Blackhorn Tribe in the top left corner. They are called black horns because of the black horns that they harvest from local bison herds. There is a sneaky hunter in the top right corner. He just seemed to fit. Plus miscellaneous dragons; a pterosaur on the cliff at the bottom and an Allosaurus lying in the bottom right.

Did you know dinosaurs actually lived along side Man? Before 1842 when Sir Richard Owen invented the word "Dinosaur" they were called DRAGONS! Amazing how many dragon legends describe dinosaur fossils we see in the dirt.